[Review] Dell Latitude 10 (Part 2): Performance, Pros, Cons, Summary

So now that you’ve a general idea of what the business-focused Dell Latitude 10 tablet has to offer, how does it translate into real work? In Part 2, we’ll see how it fares in daily tasks – both at work and play. It has received favourable reviews in the industry thus far. It even caught the attention of PCMag, garnering the PCMag’s Editor’s Choice for Business Tablet in 2013.

Performance

The Latitude 10 is powered by a 3rd generation Intel Atom system-on-chip (SoC) codenamed “Clover Trail”. The Clover Trail platform powered many tablets at the end of 2012 and in early 2013, the improved version “Clover Trail+” made its debut. Late last year, Intel released its best yet – the next generation Intel Atom platform called “Bay Trail.”

Being an ultra-low voltage processor and architecture, you can expect a good balance of computing and graphics performance, and battery life. This is ultimately where the Atom excels.

The tablet does everyday tasks well, whether you are web browsing, emailing, social networking, word-processing, reading books, watching videos, listening to music and viewing photos.

It is also suitable for some lightweight gaming – the integrated graphics copes moderately well with casual games.

In fact, I can say that the Latitude 10 is great for content consumption, aided also by the crisp HD display and decent stereo speakers.

Where it does stumble, however, is when you need to deal with more intensive tasks like photo processing, or loading large files. The tablet was my main working machine for several media junkets because I decided I didn’t want to lug my MacBook Pro along, and it was a good real world field test.

Things become slightly overwhelming for the tablet when you load the 100 photos you took from media event. It can lag when loading a lot of photos, or when you do some photo editing. I used a combination of free app Pixlr, Watermark and Photoshop Express.

Perhaps it’s asking too much of the little Atom, and its limited 2GB RAM. Well, I did say I’d give it a real world field test.

The cameras are nothing to shout about although the 8MP main shooter captures details quite well when given sufficient light. In general, you wouldn’t be shooting with a 10-inch tablet anyways. Oh wait, you do?

What’s great about Latitude 10 is the myriad expansion and connectivity ports. Just like you would on a full-fledged notebook, you can plug in a thumb drive or a USB broadband dongle, transfer files via SD card, or connect to an external display via mini-HDMI. Fantastic. You can even extend this further with an optional dock that adds even more ports.

Another aspect where it excels is battery life. The 2-cell battery claims to deliver 9-hours of battery life. Without any fancy pants tweaking and reducing of brightness display, I generally got 5-6 hours of solid battery performance. Need more, opt for the 4-cell battery.

Specs at a glance

Productivity SoftwareOffice 2013 TrialOffice Home and Business 2013 (English/Simplified Chinese/Traditional Chinese/Korean)Office Professional 2013 (English/Simplified Chinese/Traditional Chinese/Korean)Office Home and Student 2013 (English/Simplified Chinese)Office Home and Student 2013 for Tablet (English/Traditonal Chinese) for Consumer only

Pricing and availability

The Dell Latitude 10 is available direct from the Dell Online Store from RM2,100 (SRP).

In summary

A pure business-focused tablet is few and far between, so the Dell Latitude 10 doesn’t really have competition. It’s not a gun-slinging performer, in all honesty, but it isn’t a slowpoke either.

It’s great for content consumption, and more than capable of keeping up with your everyday tasks, be it work or play. What’s outstanding is its live-wire battery life and expansion options, and not forgetting its decent looks and excellent build quality.

A notebook replacement it is ultimately not, however, if you’re looking to complement your work notebook, this could be a viable option.